MEAL: Leadership in a Time of Crisis

When tragedy strikes the workplace -- a fatal accident, violence, a robbery, or natural disaster -- all employees immediately look to its leadership for direction. How those leaders respond when all eyes are upon them offers both tremendous opportunity and serious risk for the subsequent outcomes. Reactions to their leadership will echo throughout the organization as others take their cue from the charted direction. Employees will go through the crisis with or without leadership. How do you address the human impacts and financial costs? How do you communicate in a way that demonstrates both competence and compassion? What should you do to mitigate tragedy’s occurrence and keep a bad situation from getting worse? This presentation will address crisis leadership skills that support individual and organizational resilience.

Learning Objectives

• Increased understanding for how doing the right thing impacts the bottom line
• Increased understanding regarding the predictable individual and organizational symptoms of traumatic stress
• Increased understanding of effective crisis communication skills to foster resilience

Join us for a conversation with Bob VandePol, Executive Director of Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services, on this topic. 

Bob VandePol MSW serves as Executive Director of Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services’ Employee Assistance and Church Assistance programs. Prior to joining the Pine Rest team, he was President of Crisis Care Network, helping to lead it from a startup to the world’s largest provider of Critical Incident Response services to the workplace. Active as a keynote speaker, Mr. VandePol has published and been quoted in business and clinical journals, co-authored book chapters addressing workplace response to tragedy, and has been featured as subject matter expert in numerous video training series. He managed CCN’s Command Center in Manhattan after the 2001 terrorist attacks and frequently consults with businesses, universities, schools, and churches regarding how leaders can accelerate organizational recovery following crises.

A big thank you to lunch sponsor: 


As part of our initiative to develop a deeply engaged membership, we are restructuring our MEAL program to be one hour long, with networking opportunities incorporated into the event.  Make sure to be at the event by the start time so you don't miss out on any of the program.